Dee Discusses: Gilmore Girls Season 2

Once I got started on my Gilmore Girls rewatch, I got in the zone, which is exactly what Netflix does. It’s so easy to push ‘next episode’ even if it’s past midnight and you’re getting up at six am. And the next day all I could do was sing “where you lead, I will follow!” Anyway I already talked about season one, I think it was an excellent beginning to the series. We know that Lorelai and Rory Gilmore are unusual mother and daughter. Rory is very intelligent and newly arrived at a prestigious prep school, plus navigating her first relationship. Lorelai was proposed to by teacher Max at the end of the season, while juggling a private back and forth with Luke Danes that had yet to be fulfilled. Alas, for the fanbase. They spent every Friday night with Lorelai’s parents, who now had the chance to get to know their granddaughter, although they have a very difficult relationship with their daughter. That’s basically the summary. On to season two!

This season introduced one of my least favorite characters on the show, which alas was very popular with everyone else: Jess, Luke’s rebellious nephew and Rory’s new love interest. Gag me. I’ll admit I’ve never liked the bad boy thing, and I have even less patience for it now as an adult. He’s rude to everyone in town. The only one he’s nice to is Rory, and that’s because he wants her, so I take it with a grain of salt. He’s one of those guys who has the potential of more intelligence, but thinks he’s too cool for school. I will never get his popularity, but I steeled myself for the rewatch, since I’m going to have to see him for awhile. Sigh. Anyway that’s the main drive for this season, at least in Rory’s case. Jess comes into town, everyone hates him but Rory, she has feelings for him, but she is still with Dean. Dean and Rory have some trouble early in the season because her grandparents disapprove of him being lower class. Oh you’re just going to love Jess, guys. Anyway Jess and Luke have a deal: he graduates high school, and he can stay. He is sent away when he gets into a car accident with Rory, and only Luke and Rory really care. He comes back at the end of the season and Rory kisses him at Sookie’s wedding. A fact she neglects to tell anyone else, especially her boyfriend. Uncool.

The beginning of hell for me.

Lorelai meanwhile has drama of her own. She agrees to Max’s proposal and gets into a fight with her mother, because she doesn’t tell her, and Emily has to hear from Sookie instead. However in her bachelorette party, she has second thoughts and calls Rory’s father Christopher. She decides to run off with Rory and cancel the wedding. Luke’s relieved of course, and he very poorly hides it. Luke and Lorelai have a falling out after Rory gets in a car accident with Jess. She angrily blames Jess’ behavior and general existence in their town on Luke, and questions his parenting/guardian skills. I can’t really fault her for that, Jess is out of control, but Luke does try. At least more than Jess’ mother. Lorelai’s father Richard leaves his job, or rather he’s foisted out into retirement, but he decides he wants to start his own business.

Lane is sent off for a lot of the season, Sookie and Jackson get married, and Paris and Rory become legitimate friends. I have to admit on the whole I’m not terribly interested in the love stories here. In Lorelai’s case, we all knew she would end up with Luke, that was end game, plain and simple. I was just like GET THERE ALREADY. I did enjoy their falling out, because it felt legitimate, and it’s good to see them clash in realistic ways. As always I find Lorelai’s relationship with her parents fascinating – and difficult – to watch. The episode when she goes to the spa with her mother was a tense one, and unfortunate. I sympathized with Emily’s wish that they had a closer relationship, while understanding Lorelai’s side that they’re just too different and have too much bad history.

Anyway the season ends with Lorelai and Christopher getting back together, I always disliked Christopher too, while finding him charming. He plans on breaking up with his girlfriend, but she reveals she’s pregnant, and he can’t walk away from another child. Which wow harsh. That’s not going to cause any friction or anything. He breaks both Lorelai and Rory’s heart. Since I am generally anti-Jess, I pretty much sighed and rolled my eyes through most of his scenes. The only relationship of his I enjoy is with Luke. I have some sympathy for Jess, because his ditz of a mother and deadbeat father do not exactly lead to a happy childhood. I was disappointed in Rory for missing her mother’s graduation to see the mumble mouthed jerk, and her general bad behavior. But! More Paris? Always good. Also I was happy for Sookie and Jackson. I better steel myself because there’s only more Jess drama coming.

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While Jess wasn’t a character that I was overly fond of either, he’s there to shake Rory out of the comfortable zone she’d fallen into with Dean and to generally add a little unpredictability to the sleepy perfect little town, which is something that I can appreciate while disliking him and hating the idea of Rory with him.

Oh I agree with that. If she was in that safe boring relationship with Dean forever, it would’ve been like watching paint dry. But it’s hard for me to enjoy storylines when I dislike characters this much. And he got so much screen time, ughhhh. I’m going to talk in my next review about Jess a little more, because I think thematically he’s interested, and the intentions of the writers interest me.

I will say that the END of Jess’ character was actually gratifying with me. The only time I liked that character was in his last episode, and I felt satisfied with the arc. Still doesn’t make it fun to watch now.